Alan MacSimoin

I am shocked and saddened to hear of the news of the death of Alan MacSimoin. In the 1970s as national secretary of the Anarchist Workers Association I corresponded with a young man in an Irish Republican youth organisation who had started considering anarchist ideas. This was Alan and he went on to working with us to setting up an anarchist organisation in the Republic , This eventually became the Workers Solidarity Movement. Alan parted with the WSM some years ago but he remained an active anarchist till the end
He was bright and acerbic and always well dressed whenever I met him. A great loss to the movement and to the world. Totally choked to hear this news.

Let me just say, we go back a long time, 40 years or so
We had different views and opinions on stuff, he a platformist,
coming out of the revolutionary wing of the republican Irish movement,
me, an anarchosyndicalist. But Alan was dedicated to anarchism
and (more importantly) a person of their word.

My condolences to everyone who knew him. I'd bet that there weren't many who, like Alan, had the courage to give up nationalism for libertarian communism and go on to organize in the difficult circumstances of 1970s Ireland.

A strike a McDonalds.... the struggle never ends, even as comrades lives do.

Here's to you Alan!

Anarchist Worker (May/June 1978)

["b]Anarchist Worker,[/b] published by the Anarchist Workers Alliance in the late 1970s/early 1980s, can be regarded as one of the forerunners of the Workers Solidarity Movement. The AWA existed in Belfast and Dublin but was always more of an idea than a reality, with membership never going into double figures. The print run was about 750 (ranging from 500 to 1,500)."

Some of Alan;s early anarchist activity was in the Murray Defence Committee and we in the AWA in the UK worked closely with him in solidarity activity to save the Murrays from the rope. He came to London and helped us produce a two sided special edition of our paper Anarchist Worker focussing on the Murrays and we participated with him in the demonstration outside the Irish Embassy on July 24th 1976,

Some of Alan;s early anarchist activity was in the Murray Defence Committee and we in the AWA in the UK worked closely with him in solidarity activity to save the Murrays from the rope. He came to London and helped us produce a two sided special edition of our paper Anarchist Worker focussing on the Murrays and we participated with him in the demonstration outside the Irish Embassy on July 24th 1976,

Cool,cool, I never knew about his London participation in the Murray ca,pain. I recall that issue of the "AW". I somehow remember (falsely maybe at this time) that the Murray page was also a stand alone leaflet or something of sorts. I know we did our best to publicize the Murray case, do defense stuff and disbursed stuff from the defense committee, Also recall a smallish leaflet, one sided by the DC which we made copies of and distributed.

Not having access to our records at the moment, I'm wonder if it was thru the Murray case we first were in touch with Alan? Oddly, I also remembering him signing his name as Alain (is that gaelic?).

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